226 



ON THE VENTILATION OF FORCING-HOUSES. 



placed securely in nearly the highest temperature that can be beneficial 

 to them. 



A less humid atmosphere is more advantageous to fruits of all kinds, 

 when the period of their maturity approaches, than in the earlier 

 stages of their growth, and such an increase of ventilation, at this period, 

 as will give the requisite degree of dryness to the air within the house is 

 highly beneficial ; provided it be not increased to such an extent as to 

 reduce the temperature of the house much below the degree in which 

 the fruit has previously grown, and thus retard its progress to maturity. 

 The good effect of opening a peach-house, by taking off the lights of its 

 roof during the period of the last swelling of the fruit, appears to have 

 led many gardeners to overrate greatly the beneficial influence of a free 

 current of air upon ripening fruits ; for I have never found ventilation 

 to give the proper flavour or colour to a peach, unless that fruit was at 

 the same time exposed to the sun without the intervention of glass ; and 

 the most excellent peaches I have ever been able to raise, were obtained 

 under circumstances where change of air was as much as possible prevented 

 consistently with the admission of light (without glass) to a single tree. 



XXXIV.-UPON THE PROPER MODE OF PRUNING THE PEACH-TREE, 

 IN COLD AND LATE SITUATIONS. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, May 6th, 1817.] 



THE buds of fruit-trees, which produce blossoms, and those which 

 afford leaves only, in the spring, do not at all differ from each other, 

 in their first state of organisation, as buds. Each contain the rudiments 

 of leaves only, which are subsequently transformed into the component 

 parts of the blossom, and in some species of the fruit also. I have 

 repeatedly ascertained, that a blossom of a pear or apple tree contains 

 parts, which previously existed as the rudiments of five leaves, the points 

 of which subsequently form the five segments of the calyx ; and I have 

 often succeeded in obtaining every gradation of monstrosity of form, 

 from five congregated leaves, (that is, five leaves united circularly upon 

 an imperfect fruit-stalk), to the perfect blossom of the pear-tree. The 

 calyx of the rose, in some varieties, presents nearly the perfect leaves of 

 the plant, and the large and long leaves of the medlar appear to account 

 for the length of the segments, in the empalement of its blossom. The 

 calyx of the blossom of the plum and peach tree is formed precisely 



